1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to techniques for communicating between computer systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for establishing multiple sessions between a database and a middle-tier client.
2. Related Art
Many organizations deploy enterprise applications that adhere to a multi-tier system model. Typically, in a multi-tier system model, a first server processes part of a request from a client and then sends the request to a second server, which either finishes processing the request, or passes the request to yet another server. In general, for interactions between tiers of an enterprise application, a first server authenticates to a second server before sending the request to the second server to ensure that the first server has authorization to send the request to the second server. Often, these authentication operations are responsible for the bulk of the overhead of server-to-server interactions. Therefore, to reduce this overhead, it is desirable for the authentication process to be very fast.
“Login storms” are a common problem related to server-to-server interactions, which typically affects larger organizations. The term “login storm” describes an event wherein many users attempt to login to a system at approximately the same time, which causes the system to slow down. This usually occurs during peak periods, such as at the start of the work-day. Moreover, in some authentication systems, the authentication process involves multiple handshakes to authenticate a system, thus further exacerbating the login storm problem.
Hence, what is needed is a method for establishing a session between two systems without the problems listed above.